She shook her head in perplexity. “I’ll never know where you got the idea that you were destined for greatness.” She dropped the rest of the rabbit in the pot and begun to clean the...

World War II is the greatest drama in human history, the biggest war ever and a true battle of good and evil. I imagine writers will continue to get stories from it, and readers will...

He was looking forward eagerly to seeing her again. He had coped perfectly well on his own, of course, but it was very reassuring to have someone in your life who was always ready to...

It was the most romantic plane ever made.

He had forgotten that God saw through the silk robes to the sinful heart, that the only wealth worth having was treasure in heaven, and that even the king had to kneel down in church....

Most of my stories have some basis in fact.

The sun rises, and the sun sets. Sometimes it rains. We live, then we die.” He shrugged.He would never understand, Wolff thought; but others would.

A very good editor is almost a collaborator.

Proportion is the heart of beauty.

Hunger is the best seasoning.

With hindsight, we see that the Soviet Union never had a chance of world domination, but we didn’t know that then.

Americans talked about voters the same way Russians talked about Stalin. They had to be obeyed.

Movies have influenced all writers, not just thriller writers.

Everything in Tom’s cathedral looked as if it was meant to be. Perhaps her life was like that, everything foreordained in a grand design, and she was like a foolish builder who wanted a waterfall...

An awful lot of thriller writers write women rather badly. So just doing it OK gets a lot of credit.

Fear could paralyse. Action was the antidote.

politicians often had the knack of seeming to know everyone intimately. Either they had remarkable memories, or their secretaries reminded them efficiently.

Monks committed all the same sins that ordinary people did. He had just been shocked by the woman’s shamelessness. The sight of her nakedness remained with him, the way the hot heart of a candle...

It pleased Aliena that they were all together: she and Jack and their children, and Jack’s mother, and Aliena’s brother, and Martha. It was quite like an ordinary family, and Aliena could almost forget that...

My favorite period is World War II, and I’m in the middle of writing my fourth novel set in that era.

A chill December morning dawned, with rags and tatters of mist hanging on the trees like poor people’s washing.

Be a perfectionist.